Be My All Might
by Lady Danyrie August
Summary: Shouto finds himself drawn to the fledgling Symbol of Peace. An innocent invitation to train together becomes a firm friendship. Of course... Bakugou can't help but get in the way.
1. And So It Begins

**I do not own My Hero Academia.** **Hello everyone! I am here! (I'm giggling as I'm writing this). This is my first MHA fic and it's a Shouzuku because the pair of them work so well together. Bear in mind that this is an AU. Things will happen VERY differently. This picks up immediately at the end of the Sports Festival.** **Also, yes, I call the pairing Shouzuku because it's both of their first names. Tododeku kind of works, but it annoys me that it's a combination of a surname and what is _essentially an insult regardless of how Izuku uses it_. So yeah. Don't fight me on this.** **Enjoy!**

The boy had determination and pride written in every part of his figure. Shouto still sometimes saw in his dreams the sheer power Midoriya had displayed in facing him. That in itself was unusual, but what was even more unusual was the detail he remembered in the boys face. Not his eye colour though. For some reason, everything about 'Deku's' eyes had faded from his memory except the mixture of anger, sadness, pain and determination they had held as they launched their final attacks.

Not that he would ever admit aloud how entranced he was at the mere thought of those eyes.

Since the Festival he had found himself pondering the boy's words frequently. Despite his seeming return meek behaviour, something was different about Midoriya. An air of satisfaction, possibly? Or maybe it was pride? He wasn't exactly the most socially adjusted person, so he couldn't be sure.

He had decided that he would ask Midoriya to join him for some after-school exercise, and he honestly wasn't sure why. He had never felt emotions particularly strongly, he was used to being completely exhausted both mentally and physically from his training, which didn't leave a lot of room for emotions to grow and flourish. Perhaps Midoriya's inner strength had drawn him in, and he was subconsciously drawing a kindred spirit closer. Perhaps it was his ability to draw out the best and worst in those around him. After all, he had been almost shamed into using his fire quirk against Midoriya, and the boy's mere existence seemed enough to piss off the loudmouth of the class, Bakugou.

It was slightly sobering to know that he could have won in the final match had he done as Bakugou had taunted and used his all. Was the loss really worth spiting his father? His cynical side told him that of course it was, but his, admittedly underdeveloped, sensitive side was heatedly arguing point.

He sighed. This was going nowhere. Looking up from the slightly mossy path he was stalki... uh... walking along, he could see that UA had come into view at last.

Up ahead, he saw a familiar mop of green hair bobbing along next to a brown bob and severe blue cut. Of course those three would be meeting up right now, making his task even more embarassing. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It would be fine. Midoriya would be more nervous than him, right?

"Hey, Todoroki!"

Apparently not. Damn.

"Hello, Midoriya, Iida, Uraraka. May I speak to Midoriya alone for a moment?"

His face showed a brief flash of worry before schooling into a happy smile. It seemed that while Iida missed the moment of emotion, the bubbly gravity girl did not. She simply grasped the talleer boy by the elbow and led him away.

Trying to emulate the warmth Midoriya showed, he forced his own face into a smiling facade. To be honest, his own smile was sort of awkward. A lot of teeth. He'd never liked it.

"So what did you need, Todoroki?"

Midoriya somehow maintained his smile even when managing to sound serious. Had he been taking lessons from All Might in smiling?! Given the suspicions he already had, it was possible.

"I found myself impressed and... motivated... by our match in the Festival. I was curious... would you accept an offer to train with me after school finishes on certain days?"

At this, Midoriya frowned. For a moment, his heart skipped a beat. Was his generous, not to mention embarrassing offer, about to be rejected?

"Um..." Midoriya began, now looking slightly flustered. "Well, I'd love to see how you do in a fight without quirks... and I do need to get better... I need to improve... Maybe..." He trailed off for a moment, looking off to the side. Then his eyes snapped back and he continued. "May I give you my answer later, Todoroki? I need to ask someone for some advice."

He shrugged and nodded, trying not to show that he felt uncomfortable with being put in this awkward waiting position. Midoriya smiled and reached out a hand. Shaking it firmly, he then stood and watched as the shorter boy dashed off to catch up to his friends.

 **Toshinori Yagi, aka All Might's, Office**

A knocking at the door at this time of the morning meant one of two people. And seeing as he'd gotten his paperwork in on time this week...

"Come in, young Midoriya."

The door opened quickly, and the boy entered, fidgeting slightly. So something had happened. He was tempted to sigh.

"So what do you need me for kiddo?"

Izuku looked at his mentor and screwed up his face in resolve. Toshinori waited patiently for the tirade to start.

"Todoroki wants me to train with him."

For a second, the words didn't properly register with the man. When they did, he spat coffee all over his coffee table... and his protege ("hey!").

"I'm... I'm sorry, did you just say that Todoroki asked you to train with him?!"

"Y-yeah. What should I do, All Might?"

In disbelief, the man raised an eyebrow and quickly smacked the back of his hand against his apprentice's forehead.

"ARE YOU DAFT, BOY? You accept, obviously! This is an incredible chance for you!"

Izuku chuckled weakly. "Hehe, sorry, All Might... I just figured you should know... And that you might not want me to do it. I just thought that it could help me improve my control of One For All..."

Still stunned by the fact that the usually level-headed and focussed boy had not immediately grasped the opportunity being offered to him, he wondered what was different about the boy this time around. Was it something to do with Todoroki? Or had Izuku changed in some way after their match? He'd be keeping a close eye on the situation, that was for sure.

"Well, I think it would be an excellent opportunity, so why don't you run, now, and tell him before classes start, ok?"

"Yes, All Might, see you!"

As the boy raced from the room, apparently taking the suggestion to run seriously, Toshinori shook his head fondly. That was more like the Izuku he knew.

 **That Friday Evening, 6:00**

Todoroki had told him to wait at the train station at 6 o'clock. It was nerve-wracking, waitng to be picked up by the best student in the class, and taken to their home, for training. Training! With Todoroki! The son of the Number Two Hero! Izuku shook his head. He needed to forget about THAT connection. He didn't want to make a fool of himself or upset Todoroki.

That sparked a thought though, why did he care so much about upsetti...?

The thought was cut off as a familiar figure approached him from the now-open doors of the train.

"Midoriya"

"Good evening, Todoroki."

The exchange was brief but for reasons Izuku couldn't pinpoint, it felt warmer than it had the last time they had spoken, two days prior. They had since exchanged some perfunctory texts clarifying times and places but otherwise had given each other plenty of space.

Izuku followed quickly as Todoroki started walking. He didn't want to fall behind the boy, as in the gradually increasing crowds, he had a feeling that he would easily become lost. They walked the length of the platform, then climbed a set of stairs that lead over the tracks to the opposite platform, the one heading in the direction Todoroki had come. In descending the stairs behind the taller boy, Izuku had the rare opportunity to observe the top of Todoroki's head and in particular the line between his two hair colours. There was no blending at all, no light pinkish tones transitioning between the two colours. There was an almost perfect line where the white stopped and the red started.

The train ride to Todoroki's station was swift, a mere twenty two minutes. After that, it was another thirty or so minute walk before they arrived, at last, on the Todoroki property. Izuku's eyes bugged out of his skull at the enormous plot of land and the beautiful traditional architecture. His own modest home could be fit several times into Todoroki's front yard!

Rolling his eyes at the antics of his new training partner, Shouto stepped back and grabbed Izuku's hand, dragging him forwards for a few metres before letting go. The boy took the hint and followed.

Neither boy noticed the angry glare directed at them from a second story window.

Upon entering the lavish house's main reception area, Shouto winced as he heard his father's voice.

"SHOUTO!"

"Fuck..." The teen cursed under his breath. This couldn't be good.

And indeed, it wasn't. Not a moment later, Endeavour himself dropped down in front of the two boys, the resigned and angry Shouto and the fearful and apprehensive Izuku. His face betrayed nothing... yet.

"So... I see that you have brought a... friend... home, Shouto."

The Flame Hero's face twisted into a horrible facsimile of a smile. It was obvious that he was angry, and just looking for a reason to let it out.

"Yes father. I apologise for not informing you soo..."

"INFORMING?"

The now visibly aggravated man interrupted his son, and the temperature in the room rose by a few degrees. Shouto winced, which was not missed by Izuku.

"Requesting... of you, that Midoriya be allowed to visit beforehand."

Endeavour was silent for a moment. A moment too long, as it happened, as it gave Izuku time to attempt to help his friend out.

"I'm sorry, Mr Todoroki, Sir, if it's a problem me being here, I'll leave now. Don't worry, I won't come by without permission again."

The boy put on his best brave smile, and bowed deeply to the man, before taking a step back, as if to turn and leave.

The impressive man stopped him quickly.

"No! Why would I not want my son to have his... friend over to spend some time? I'm sure that as long as you behave I won't have a problem with you, Midoriya."

His tone was mild but it also held a dangerous edge that scared Midoriya. There was an obvious threat implicit, and he knew ignoring a threat from someone as powerful as this man would be unwise to say the least. Keeping his smile intact, Izuku stepped back towards his friend's father and extended his hand.

"Then I'm sure I'll behave while I'm here, Sir, thank you! To properly introduce myself, I am Izuku Midoriya."

The man waited another moment, before grasping Izuku's hand firmly. He had a terrifically strong grip, and it was hot too, the man's flames were certainly far from weak.

"Welcome to the Todoroki household, Izuku Midoriya. I'm sure Shouto can show you where everything is. Off with you two now."

The dismissal was clear, and Shouto immediately set off for his room, Izuku in tow. It didn't escape Izuku's notice that the boy's shoulder's were tensed right until they finally left the main area, where they were in line of sight with Endeavour. 'No, Mr Todoroki. Not Endeavour. He's off-duty here.'

It took a full minute of walking through the corridors to reach Shouto's room, and Izuku was struck once again with awe as he looked around the enormous house.

Shouto stopped in front of the door to his room, slowly opening it, trying to hold in his frustration at his father. Taking a deep breath, he stepped slightly to the side and motioned to his friend to enter ahead of him.

As Izuku stepped into the room, he tried desperately to reign in his excitement. He couldn't believe that finally, he was going to be trusted to be in his friend's room! It had been so long since Kacchan had trusted him enough (or liked him enough, if he was honest with himself) that it was incredible to know that he had someone like that again!

"A best friend," the excitable boy muttered under his breath "Todoroki is my... best friend."

An amused grunt, coupled with the sound of a door latching, drew Izuku's attention back to Shouto.

"Do you mean that, Midoriya? You might not want to be my best friend after I put you through your paces in the dojo."

The amusement in his voice was clear, and Izuku felt his face flush with embarrassment despite himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but a dismissive wave of Shouto's hand cut him off before he could launch into an explanation.

"It's ok. I don't mind being your best friend, Mi-" He stopped abruptly, and for a moment, he was still. "You can call me Shouto. Do you mind if I call you Izuku?"

Izuku smiled broadly, and shook his head.

"Not at all, Shouto. I'd love it if you called me Izuku!"

His eyes were downcast for a moment and he muttered something Shouto didn't hear.

The boys found that after allowing each other to use their first names, the conversation flowed much more easily. It came as a surprise to both that the other was considerably different when they were alone together.

For Shouto's part, he noticed that while Izuku was still his overenthusiastic and overanalytical self, he didn't constantly babble, instead he seemed to absorb, taking in everything like a sponge. Every word that came out of Shouto's mouth was met by open and listening ears, and he was delighted that someone cared so much about what he had to say, even though as far as he was concerned he was going over the absolute basics of what they would do.

Izuku, on the other hand, felt a delightful glow at the far more relaxed boy talking to him. Without the weight of being in the public eye or at school, it seemed that Todoro-, no, Shouto, had become adept at letting go of all his burdens and simply being there. He still wasn't one to smile overly often but he no longer grimaced and frowned. His expression was slack and content, not showing the burden of responsibility he normally held.

Neither of them realised that they had been talking for hours until one of Shouto's siblings, who Izuku was sure he'd been told the name of, but couldn't remember, knocked on the door, telling Shouto that the dojo was free and dinner was ready.

A simple "Thanks" issued forth from Shouto before he sprang lithely to his feet, then offered his hand to Izuku. The boy took the proffered appendage and was pulled somewhat roughly to his feet. Outwardly, he tried to show no sign of surprise, but inwardly he marvelled at how strong his new best friend was.

They made their way quietly through the corridors again, following a different path through the house then they had come in, and soon found themselves in an open room similar in size to the one at the entrance of the house. Only one other person was there, the girl who Izuku presumed informed them of the dinner.

Sitting down on the floor mats, following Shouto's lead, Izuku looked at the bowl of rice before him with a slight blush. He wasn't used to being around strangers, especially girls. When she politely asked him what vegetables he would like, he looked up and was surprised that she was smiling at him.

Naturally, he missed the miniscule glare Shouto sent her.

He did not miss, however, the exasperated sigh (or the rolling of eyes) that came from Shouto when the girl, cheeky smile firmly in place, asked if this new person was Shouto's boyfriend. Izuku laughed, clearly she was trying to defuse some of the tension. Well, it had worked. When he calmed down, he offered his hand across the table to her.

"I'm Izuku Midoriya, a classmate of Shouto's - your brother's, haha!"

His nerves still not totally calmed down, his fingers shook slightly as she reached out to grasp it. She had a firm grip and it reassured him when she shook his hand once, hard, before releasing it.

"Hi Midoriya, I'm Fuyumi Todoroki! Sorry for the teasing before, I'm definitely the lighter-hearted of the two of us! Shouto here is so serious, all the rest of us have to make up for it sometimes!"

That smile she'd worn when they had first sat down was back, and Izuku, for a moment, likened it to All Might's, insofar as it never seemed to go away.

"No problem, Todoroki, it's fine. Shouto here is a good friend and he asked me to train with him, so that's why I'm here. I guess it's better that he's serious about it given the context."

A little stuffy, but he was somewhat proud at how well his 'small talk' had improved - especially since meeting Uraraka. That girl could probably talk the bags out from under Mr. Aizawa's eyes, given the chance.

She shook her head.

"Please, use my first name. If you call everyone in this house 'Todoroki' you'll confuse everyone!"

Izuku looked dazed for a moment, and it was only Shouto placing a hand on his shoulder that brought him out of it and realizing he hadn't replied, he bowed his head.

"I-I'm sorry for not answering you right away, Fuyumi, but... I'm not really used to people being so polite to me. Sorry again!"

He finished sheepishly, raising his head and putting a hand on his neck. He didn't notice, but Shouto still hadn't removed his hand. Fuyumi, however, did, although she said nothing.

It was not long after that the pair of them rose, thanking Fuyumi for the dinner, and beginning to head to the dojo. Along the way, Izuku teased Shouto about having a five-minute walk from one end of their property to the other. Not that it wasn't true.

The dojo, as it happened, was across from the house, on the other side of a large, beautifully kept courtyard full of flowering bushes. Even at night, it still shone with the delicate poise one could only expect from nature herself.

Sliding open the door to the dimly lit building, Shouto stepped inside ahead of Izuku, finding the light switch and flipping it. A series of tube lights across the ceiling (that, by the way, definitely didn't fit with the traditional Japanese aesthetic of the building's architecture) lit up and Izuku saw that the room's floor was covered in dents and even broken boards.

"It's not good-looking, but it's fairly stable and solid... we'll do our training together in here, Izuku."

Izuku's eyes brightened as he took in the room again. He walked forward until he was in the centre of the room, then slowly spun around, taking in the dimensions of the space, memorising it. It was a good twenty-metres in every direction from the middle of the room, perfect for extended combat practise. He noted that there were no scorch marks in here.

"No quirks in here, huh?"

A vicious snort from Shouto.

"Of course not. If father used his quirk in here, he'd the whole place on fire. And if he wasn't allowed to use his quirk, then I sure as hell wasn't. Come on, take your shirt off, these stretches and exercises will be easier without it on."

Izuku shrugged his shirt off, tossing it over to join his friends after he saw Shouto had done the same. Shouto's muscles were so well defined that Izuku felt slightly out of his depth for a moment before he shook the feeling off, focussing on the instructions he was being given.

For the best part of two hours, the two boys moved through Shouto's normal training. This consisted of thirty minutes of stretching their bodies in ways that got gradually more dynamic. Stretching was followed by 'form drilling', where Shouto began to teach Izuku the particular fighting style he had grown up learning. Finally they sparred together, Shouto refusing to pull his punches even against a rank amateur, as, in his words, "If you don't start by learning to fight someone better than you, you won't develop the proper attitude. You need to treat every fight as if you are fighting your toughest opponent yet, that way you'll never underestimate them."

His friend's words made sense to Izuku, so he kept quiet and tried his best to keep up with Shouto. It was quite frightening to see how fast and hard the boy could strike. He was a viper, and Izuku was his prey. The successor of One For All had never felt more clumsy or out of his depth. It was his quirk, he deduced, that put him in the ballpark to compete with Shouto in the Sports Festival.

Of course, taking time to deduce anything right now was, shall we say, hazardous for his health. In the fractional amount of time that he spent not focussed on watching Shouto's movements, the boy had him off balance and a quick palm strike to Izuku's chin had him sprawling on his back for the fifth or sixth time.

He accepted the proffered hand as Shouto reached down to pull him to his feet, and readied himself in his best approximation of the generic stance Shouto had taught him. However, the boy shook his head, face expressionless, as it had been throughout the sparring. Confused, Izuku let the stance drop and stood with his arms at his sides.

"You did well for a first timer, Izuku. I'm glad you decided to join me in training. I have a feeling that working together, we will both excel rather quickly. Thank you..."

Izuku laughed and, stepping forward, wrapped an arm around his friends shoulders in a rough embrace.

"What are you thanking me for?! You're the one helping me out here, all I'm doing is acting as your personal punching bag. You don't need to thank me for that, Shouto!"

The comedic statement had the effect Izuku had been shooting for, and Shouto grinned (slightly evilly, Izuku thought) and elbowed him in the ribs, forcing his arm off his shoulder as Izuku gasped for breath.

"Oh sorry, I hope that didn't hurt," Shouto exclaimed, "after all, I wouldn't want to cripple my punching bag!"

Izuku straightened and smiled at his friend. Raising his fist towards the boy, Izuku felt a warm glow when the gesture was returned and their fists came clashing together, back to back, with a solid, meaty smacking sound.

After trudging to the corner where their shirts had been sequestered and putting them back on, the pair made their way across the courtyard once again. The house itself was dark by now, bar one room on the second floor. Izuku guessed it was probably Mr Todoroki's room. Shouto's glare, only slightly visible in the dark, confirmed his theory.

Instead of bringing Izuku back to his room, Shouto showed him where the bathroom was and told him to clean up first. He handed a spare towel to Izuku and then leaned against the wall, letting himself slide down to the floor as he heard the door close. A few seconds later he could hear running water. He sighed. As much as he had enjoyed the time spent with Izuku, he was exhausted. Training had been so much harder when he had to worry about being friendly at the same time. Being sociable, actually speaking and emoting were things that no longer came naturally to him. Ever since his quirk had manifested, he had been trained to become a machine by his father. Especially after what had happened with his mother, he had locked himself away.

And yet...

This boy, with his silly enthusiasm and frankly ridiculous optimism had begun to break down his walls. So much so that it had been he who had made the first move to become better friends, inviting him to train with him. He told himself that he was only repaying Izuku for helping him in the Festival, but he knew it was a lie. Izuku, for all his flaws, had geniunely worked his way through the self-imposed protections of his soul, and he wanted to keep him close. Anyone who could make him of all people care about people personally, as opposed to simply as faceless rivals, deserved to be by his side. It was... refreshing, he decided. Having a friend. The other Todoroki children weren't his friends. He rarely saw them, and most of them resented the fact that he had father's attention and support. Only Fuyumi came even close to being friendly, and even she had limits. Not that he pushed them.

Then again, after everything Izuku had done to help him, maybe he should make a better effort to be kind and spend time with his siblings. With the exception of Bakugou, nobody seemed to be able to hate Izuku. It was almost like he had innate quirk that drew people to him. It was that, more than anything, that Shouto idolised about him. He cared about everyone, unconditionally, as long as they weren't actively hurting someone, and would leap to the defence of anyone, no matter how much pain he had to put himself through to do it. If there truly was a connection between him and All Might, then Shouto had begun to understand why All Might, might be interested in him.

Not all of his siblings would appreciate his efforts, he knew that. But for their sakes, he had to try. If he couldn't be a hero to his own family, how could he be a hero to anyone else?

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't notice Izuku standing next to him until the boy coughed into his hand, breaking his concentration.

"Shower's free."

Izuku smiled down at Shouto, holding out a hand to pull him up. The boy blinked once before grasping Izuku's hand firmly, letting himself be dragged to his feet. As Shouto entered the bathroom, Izuku sat against the wall in mimicry of his friend's pose.

Strangely, he didn't spend his time analysing or critically thinking about anything that had just happened. He'd tried to think in the shower, but the hazy, warm bliss of water, sweat and muscle fatigue all worked to put his higher mental functions to bed. Instead, he calmly watched the stars that were visible through the window across the wall from him. He noticed subliminally the water going off a few minutes later, but didn't move. The door slid open quietly and he shook his head to wake himself a bit.

The boys traipsed silently, though comfortably so, back to Shouto's room. For a moment there was nothing said between them. Izuku began to grow uncomfortable, not sure of how to deal with the quiet now that he was not full of energy and excitement.

"Shouto?"

"Hmm?"

"Why did you ask me to train with you?"

Shouto was surprised. Not at the question itself, per se. Rather, he was surprised that it had taken this long for Izuku to ask it. The inquisitive boy's questions usually could not be stoppered.

"I suppose... because you inspired me at the Sports Festival."

He paused for a moment to take in Izuku's look of shock before continuing.

"You told me that you wanted to be a hero, and your actions drew out my own desire... not to mention my power... but looking back, I think what stood out most was your smile. Originally, I had thought you were related to All Might, but that isn't it, is it? You completely idolise him... Am I wrong in assuming that your smile is your attempt to be like him? To always smile in the face of hardship?"

Izuku shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the bed.

"Look... Shouto, you aren't wrong... I... I'm not sure how to explain this, but I was always a nobody, and it's only recently that I've been able to stand out and start making myself into the person, the hero, I want to be. All Might... he is everything that I want to be. If I could be half the hero he is, I'd die happy. It was his smile that pulled me through the worst years of my life, and I want to use that, to be that smile for someone else!"

Shouto felt his mind begin racing. What... what did this mean? Was Izuku a really late bloomer with his quirk? Was that why he always hurt himself? And what was that about the worst years of his life? He seemed to have an eternal issue between himself and Bakugou, could it be possible that...?

His thoughts were interrupted as Izuku's phone beeped.

"It's my mum" he said simply.

Shouto nodded and smiled softly.

"Thank you, Izuku."

Izuku looked up sharply, eyes full of confusion.

"What are you thanking me for Shouto?"

The boy grinned wider. He wasn't sure why. To put Izuku at ease? To give a show of emotion to... what, show him he cared?

"For being my All Might."

 **AND I'M CALLING IT THERE! I figured that would be a fitting end to chapter 1. Let me know if you guys like this or not, I'm willing to keep going, though I am not sure exactly what I have in store for this pair yet. Hehe. I promise though, that it won't be at all like my oldest fanfic here, as I have a little editor friend keeping me firmly on the rails here.** **BYE**


	2. The Internship - Part 1

**What's this? An update? Well I never!**

 **Yeah, that's right. I finally made another chapter of this!**

 **I do not own My Hero Academia.**

 **UA Classroom 1-A**

"You'll all be attending a special seminar along with the second and third year hero course students today."

Aizawa's voice echoed through the homeroom doldrums, bringing a shining clarity to Izuku's mind as he realised that this was why All Might had told him that he wouldn't be teaching today. Sometimes it helped to have a UA teacher as your personal mentor, other times it was more curiosity and stress inducing than not.

"A visiting hero from New Zealand will be giving a lecture on teamwork while they are in Japan for a business meeting. Their team will be on campus for the entirety of the day today, and all of tomorrow as well. If you have any questions after the lecture, feel free to approach any of them you wish. What is it, Midoriya?"

The question was phrased in mostly the same tone, but Izuku could detect a hint of amused exasperation as well.

"May I ask what heroes are visiting?"

A very tiny uplift at the corner of his teacher's mouth told him that he had asked a good question.

"You may. The hero team that will be visiting is the official ANZHC team of heroes. For those of you who don't know, that's the Australian and New Zealand Hero Corps. They are classified as a domestic protection branch of the Australian and New Zealand armies and operate without borders in the two countries, despite only one of the ten-person team actually being Australian. The leader is a woman who has the hero name Crush. I personally don't know anything else about the group beyond their actual names, which I won't reveal to you. Now get ready to take notes, you're expected in the amphitheatre in ten minutes."

Seeing blank looks from most of the students, he sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly. "The stadium where the Sports Festival was held."

There was a mad rush as students grabbed bags, notebooks, pens, phones, magazines ("Really Mineta?") and a variety of other paraphernalia. The stampede to get out of the door that followed had Aizawa shaking his head and wondering if he shouldn't have just slept in this morning.

As he went to exit the room after his class, he found his path blocked by something. Or, someone.

"Here. Izuku told me that you take your coffee black, with no sugar and an extra half-shot. It's hot."

A mug was forced into his hands, full of deliciously, sensuosly aromatic coffee, before the offending student disappeared down the hall after his classmates. When had Todoroki gotten that coffee? When had Izuku realised he wanted one? Most importantly, _precisely how_ did the boy know exactly how he took his coffee?

He sighed before taking a sip. Perfect.

Another of life's great mysteries.

 **The UA Sports Amphitheatre**

It took the excited class barely five minutes to cross the huge campus to get to their spot in the amphitheatre.

Seated next to Izuku on his left was Ochaco, and to his right was Shouto. To her left, Tenya was sitting with his back ramrod straight, and to Shouto's right was an empty seat. Shouto himself sat back somewhat casually, one leg cocked over the other, with a notepad resting on his knee. Ochaco was leant forward a little, bending over her own. Izuku had _three_ notepads, and had them spread out across his lap.

The centre of the stadium was taken up with a box stage, raised about a metre off of the ground, and a small set of steps leading up to them. It was empty at the moment. Izuku watched the doors at the sides of the stadium, anxiously waiting for the heroes to enter. Beside him, Ochaco began looking to the skies, nudging his shoulder as she did so.

"Hey, Deku, do you reckon they'll fly in like All Might did in the festival?"

He shook his head out of habit, then realised she wasn't looking at him.

"Uh, no... I think they'll come through one of the doors. It makes more sense, after all, maybe none of them _can_ fly, right?"

Ochaco looked towards him, and smiled, opening her mouth to reply, before an unfamiliar trumpet blast ripped through the stadium, drawing her attention with a gasp, a sound Izuku echoed.

Coming through the furthest door from their own position, a small group had stepped into the light. At the front of the group stood a truly enormous woman, who, if Izuku had to guess, stood at over eight feet tall. 'That must be Crush' he thought, 'she's so tall, I wonder what her Quirk is?'

The oddly sorted group made their way to the platform before stepping up the stairs in single file. A microphone stand that Izuku hadn't noticed before found it's way behind the giantess of a woman who lead the group to the stage. She tapped a finger once on the microphone before picking it up off of the stand.

"Good day to you all. My name is Crush, and I'm the head of this group, and the first among the ten highest-ranked heroes in the ANZHC."

She paused for a moment, looking around the crowd. "You are hearing me today due to the efforts of Marvin here, our interpreter. He also holds the second highest position in our group." A short man stepped forward, his ears sticking out nearly a foot from his head.

The woman began speaking again, but Izuku was distracted - a large hand had just settled on his shoulder.

"Young Midoriya! Come with me..." All Might was talking quietly in the boy's ear. Izuku stuttered out a reply before he was not-so-gently shepherded away, barely managing to collect all of his notebooks together before he was led away.

 **All Might's Office, UA**

Izuku watched nervously as his mentor fiddled with a pair of sheets of paper.

"I'm very sorry to have dragged you away from the presentation, young Midoriya, but I needed to speak to you quite urgently about something. You see, you have received two offers from pro heroes for your internship. You need to consider them very carefully and make the best choice you can. Here."

The emaciated man handed the two pieces of paper to Midoriya. The first was a simple handwritten letter.

 _Kid_

 _I'll take you on during your internship. I know about OFA. I helped train your mentor back in the day._

Following that was an address to an unfamiliar area.

He placed the first letter down on the table between himself and his mentor. The second was a much more formally set out, typed sheet of paper with a rather decorative letterhead. It was in a language he recognised as English. Why would an internship offer be in English unless... !

His snapped his eyes up to look sharply at All Might, and registering the sheepish smile he saw, he sighed. Of course his mentor had set him up with the visiting hero team. All Might really did love to do his best, even when he went somewhat overboard in the process. Izuku had no idea how the man would even have been able to go about getting him this invitation.

"Well then, my boy, what do you think? Who's offer will you accept?"

Izuku gave him a look of disdain, and All Might blushed slightly.

"I'll accept Ms Crush's offer, of course. This is an opportunity I won't get again."

All Might breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright then, just wait here and I'll fetch her as soon as her presentation is done."

Izuku nodded silently, then began to mutter under his breath, which All Might took to mean he was in deep thought. In the thirty minutes he spent waiting for the group to finish their presentation, and the following twenty leading them back, he expected Midoriya to have moved on from muttering to obsessively writing in his notebooks.

He was not disappointed.

Crush stepped into the room first, as All Might held the door, and was quickly followed by the rest of her team. They stood for a moment, looking at the boy as he hurriedly sketched this or wrote that, then she coughed to get his attention. Immediately the boys' back went ramrod straight and he stood, saluting them hurriedly. She almost giggled at his earnest expression. Almost.

"Easy there, kid, you'll stress yourself out. We're a lot more laid back than we might first appear."

Izuku dropped his salute, albeit reluctantly. She gestured for him to sit.

"We're here because we were told by Yagi over here that you'd accepted our offer. I just want to do a little bit of an interview with you first, get to know you a little. There's no pressure, and unless anything too drastic is revealed your internship with us won't be endangered. Would you like to ask any questions yourself before we start?"

The boy shook his head. She sat down opposite him and leaned forward in her seat, her elbows resting on her knees and her arms folded. Izuku unconsciously leaned away from her intense gaze.

"Firstly, I'd like you to tell me a bit about what you understand a hero to be."

It was some time later, perhaps two hours or even a little more, before the 'little' interview was completed. Crush, real name Michelle Byron, came away thinking a lot more of the obviously still uncertain boy who was nevertheless determined to make a good go of his life. Izuku himself had come away with the understanding that training with these people would be like hell on Earth, and thus probably the best opportunity he'd ever had since getting the chance to become All Might's successor.

Said number one hero was somewhat in the doghouse with Gran Torino over his actions of going to them in the first place, as he'd stepped on a few important toes in his attempt to secure such an opportunity for Midoriya and Torino had eventually been asked by the Symbol of Peace to help him deal with the people belonging to those toes.

Of course, this was still a very positive and powerful experience for Izuku and he came away looking forward to his internship immensely. Time, however, would be the weaver of his tale, be it tragic or wondrous.

 **That Afternoon, Outside Class 1-A**

"Hey, Shouto! Guess what!"

The excited shout from his best friend stopped him as he was about to leave the classroom. Izuku was bouncing (quite literally, on the balls of his feet) towards him, the energy he'd had since after being dragged away for most of the day by All Might finally coming out. Sure, they'd only shared a single short class together that day after homeroom, Izuku had been out for most of the day, but it didn't take a genius observer to see his nervous energy.

"What's up, Izuku? Something good happen?"

This new 'droll' thing that Izuku had introduced to him was fun. The eyeroll he got for his effort was incredibly satisfying.

"Yeah, you won't _believe_ where I'll be interning!"

A snort of amusement issued forth from the heterochrome.

"With your father's agency, no doubt."

Izuku rolled his eyes again.

"One, All Might isn't my father, and two, no, I'm not interning at his agency."

"Well then, wh-"

"I'm interning with Crush and her team!"

Apparently Izuku hadn't realised how loudly he was speaking, because he was surprised when he heard a lot more than just Shouto's voice rise in a universal of "What?!" His classmates quickly gathered around,

"Uh... yeah... I'll be interning over in Australia for a week with Crush's team, all expenses paid and everything! It's an amazing opportunity and I'm very grateful that A-, uh, that it was set up for me!"

Shouto tapped his foot with a smirk. "You aren't helping your case, Izuku."

"A-ah, well, anyway, I'll be flying over with them at the end of the week and I can't wait! It'll be so much fun to go and learn from people so different from our heroes!"

Izuku's smile was absolutely infectious and the heterochrome's smirk relaxed as he watched the excitement pulsing through his friend. It was almost breathtaking to see his extreme sides. When Izuku wasn't muttering to himself or avoiding being sociable in general, the boy was one of two things; either highly intense, driven emotion or bright sunshine smiles and bubbling joy. This felt right, this felt to him like he expected a real friend to be!

Reaching out a hand to gently mess with Izuku's hair, he took a moment to enjoy the feeling (and definitely not the awestruck and absolutely gorgeous expression on his friend's face that came as a result) before responding. "I'm very glad that you got this opportunity, Izuku. It's really… awesome, that you get to do this… I'll be interning with my father so I hope that you do have a good time, because I probably won't."

Izuku's smile dropped faster than a lead ball, taking Shouto's good mood with it. He didn't really know why he said what he did. He didn't get long to ponder his stupid foot-in-mouth moment though, as a weight collided with his chest.

"Izuku?"

The boy said nothing and instead chose to squeeze his friend tighter, conveying all of his feelings with physicality rather than words for once, taking a page from his mother's book. Shouto stood in shock for a moment, then gently lowered his head onto Izuku's shoulder and wrapped his arms around his friend in return.

The verdanette's voice vibrated through Shouto's shoulder as he spoke in a mumble.

"Please promise me you'll tell me if your dad is giving you a hard time… I know it's not my place to worry about you, not really, but I will worry if I think you aren't telling me something..."

It was at that moment, as Shouto muttered his agreement, that a chorus of giggles behind them drew their attention to the continued presence of their classmates.

The boys leapt apart, Izuku blushing and stuttering very heavily, while Shouto's expression devolved into a blank scowl. Uraraka, Asui, Ashido, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu were standing together, watching them and giggling into their hands. It seemed like some of the boys, Bakugou and Kirishima, were also watching, although with considerably less enthusiasm.

"I'll… I'll talk to you later Shouto..." And with that, Izuku was off, on his way home.

 **Day One of the Internships, The Todoroki Household**

Shouto Todoroki was puzzled. He'd woken this morning, expecting his father to demand his presence, to lecture him through the majority of the morning on his expectations of his son. What he'd gotten was a shrug from his sister and a small paper note. It was… honestly worrying. His phone pinged, but he ignored it for the moment.

Sitting down on the floor, with a small bowl of rice, he held the note in his left hand and looked at it silently for a moment, not quite wanting to open it. When he finally did open it, he was even more puzzled.

 _Come to my office. Take your time._

 _Dad_

The use of such an affectionate and informal sign-off was disturbing and immediately Shouto suspected it was falsified, but the fact that it was his father's signature printed paper, one with a very recognisable and highly unique letterhead, one only he and his personal secretary had access to, brought him up short. But then why? Why had Endeavour brought himself so low as to use a term of endearment when signing off? What did the man want from him? What was going on? Fuyumi wasn't helping, her nonchalant shrug his only answer from her.

Deciding that he may as well bite the bullet, he quickly finished his breakfast and rushed to shower and dress.

Twenty six minutes later, he was walking through the doors of his father's enormous agency building. A receptionist immediately intercepted him and led him to an all-red elevator door, and ushered him inside. He didn't bother looking at her nametag, nor listening to her whispered statement of "good luck", he was too caught up in his own troubled thoughts.

His father's ('Dad's', he thought sardonically) office was guarded by who he assumed to be a sidekick and a very impressive and intimidating dark wooden door, delicately inlaid with golden leafed carvings. Pushing them open with an inhale, he stepped over the threshold to find…

"Ah, thank you for being punctual, Shouto, please, take a seat."

Immediately Shouto's already raised sense of tension shot up to genuine fright. He was absolutely certain now that he was going to be in for a particularly nasty beating. Surely, there was no other reason for his father to be so… nice?

He took his seat carefully, warily.

"I'm sure you're nervous, scared, worried, unsure, and especially confused. I've been at best an absentee in your life, and at worst an unwanted and torturous presence. I know very well that up until the Sports Festival I was a complete asshole towards you."

"No shit!"

When Endeavour didn't even bat an eyelid at his outburst, and simply continued, Shouto was astonished.

"I… I got a call from the hospital where… where Rei is. You went to visit her. I thought that… well, if you could go back to her and forgive her, that maybe…"

He trailed off, seemingly deep in thought.

"After your match with Midoriya, you said that you forgot me. It made me think hard about what I had been doing. Being hated was fine, I thought, but being forgotten? My blood was boiling and yet I couldn't blame you, somehow. To hear then that you'd forgiven your mother what she'd done and gone back to her… I felt this… tiny spark of hope that maybe you could forgive me. I won't lie to you, Shouto. I am still going to be a harsh, strict man because that is just who I am, and I don't want that to change. I do, however, believe that I can change how I behave. How I treat you and your … siblings."

If Shouto was asked to say anything at that moment in time, he would have been unable to. His father, his _fucking_ abusive father, was sincerely expressing a desire to change and be forgiven? No, this wasn't real. This was some cruel dream. Midoriya must have left him prone to hopeful dreams.

"I don't expect that I can change overnight but I can keep trying, all I ask is that you give me the chance to try."

Shouto sat in silence for a minute, Endeavour waiting silently, almost patient. Suddenly his senses were overwhelmed with a burning, white-hot, explosive anger. He stood and slammed clenched fists onto the desk between them, only just barely keeping a hold on his quirk.

"You… have the fucking nerve… to ask for a chance?"

There was no response.

"YOU ARE WORTH LESS THAN THE SHIT I FLUSH DOWN THE TOILET!"

It was nonsensical and it began a tirade that made less and less sense as Shouto's voice devolved from deep, raw shouting to throat-tearing sobbing and finally beating his fists, feeling oddly weightless, against his father's chest, bawling his eyes out. At some point he'd crossed the desk to stand in front of his father, who had also stood. Eventually Shouto collapsed to the floor on his knees, eyes itchy with salt and still wet, his fists, throat and chest hurting and yet… he somehow felt better.

A huge warm presence gathered him up. His father was… hugging him? Holding him? Why? Why was he doing this…? His explosive catharsis was answered with a single, short phrase.

"I know..."

 **And I'm gonna cut this chapter here for now! There's gonna be another half to this, the rest of the internship arc, and from then on there will be a divergence from canon. I know this is a little shorter than the last chapter, and I did want this to be worth posting, but I figured that it was more important to have the start of Endeavour's character arc proper, something I gave a hint to in the first chapter, given that I won't get to do too much with him in … what is coming. No spoilers for that though.**

 **Welp, please review, I would really like to see what you think of this development. I'm not as happy with this chapter as I was with the first, but I hope it at least is acceptable.**


	3. The Internship - Part 2

**I do not own My Hero Academia.**

A flash of light through leaves, a sliver of the feel of cloth. The vague, half-formed sensory haze of barely being awake. There's the sense of loss and the idea of motion, of something barely remembered as Denki Kaminari's eyes open.

 **The ANZHC Terminal, Undisclosed Location in Central Australia**

Izuku was still blown away by the facility he'd landed in once entering Australia. It was absolutely enormous. No, really. This _one_ building was as large as his entire home _city_. He supposed that at the very least they had the space to build something this gigantic. The entire thing was built into the ground, only a single story showing above, and it was incredibly impressive. Intimidating, one might say.

Currently he was being led at a hell of a pace to a training room, one where he assumed he would be showing off what he was capable of with his quirk. Crush had been silent the entire flight over, although her team had more than made up for her silence. She'd only briefly spoken to a flight attendant upon landing, and she was silent once more as she led him through the halls. He realised that he had fallen a little behind and sped up, not wanting to be left behind. The rest of the team had gone on ahead already, so it was just the pair of them walking through enormous white corridors devoid of life. There were barely any doors anywhere either, it seemed to merely be a connective tunnel.

In time, and just as Izuku was worried they'd gotten lost and would never reach their destination, they came to a stop in front of a barely visible door. She opened it and looking through Izuku could see an absolutely huge room. It seemed to be the lowest of several floors that they'd exited onto, and stretched all the way up to the surface. His jaw dropped as he saw people actually jumping entire floors and traversing the length and breadth of the room on the ropes haphazardly placed throughout.

"Well, welcome to the gym kid. This is a no-quirk zone, so enjoy not getting hurt while you can. This afternoon you're gonna wish you'd never been born."

He looked to her and was surprised by the genuine happiness on her face as she looked around at the room.

"The walls and floor are made of a weird pseudo-solid that works something in reverse to starch in water. Under normal conditions, it has barely any give and you can walk on it without sinking in. If you hit it harder though, it becomes incredibly elastic, springing you back out very quickly. You'd need to hit the stuff at over Mach 6 in order to break a bone by falling here. So go nuts kid, try your best, improve your upper body strength a bit and have some damn fun."

Izuku burst forward without a second thought, grabbing a rope and pulling himself up hand over hand. He made it up a few metres, then looked around. Crush had disappeared, and no one else was paying attention. Deciding to get a little higher, he pulled himself up another floor or so before letting go with a mad grin and plunging down.

There was a thrill of exhilaration as he fell, followed by a moment of a slightly strange sensation as he was sucked into the floor a little before being spat back out, almost making it halfway back up to the height he had fallen from.

For the next hour and a half, Izuku climbed, bounced and fell over and over again. His arms did get tired, but he was having so much fun that he didn't really care. He was almost upset when Crush returned, waiting on the floor for him.

She watched him for a moment as he settled in front of her. He didn't get much time to get nervous though, Crush turning on her heel and walking out with a flick of her hand gesturing to him to follow. This time, she led him to a doorway right across the way, opening onto an empty room with a panel of buttons on the back wall. Stepping in, the door slid silently shut behind them, and she punched a button on the wall, before entering a code he didn't catch.

The elevator started moving down, fast. He'd almost say it was bullet-train speed, given how his stomach was currently feeling. Glancing at his mentor, he realised she was barely faring any better. It slowed, then smoothly stopped in place, doors opening once again. The room revealed before him was quite small in comparison to the gel-gym, comparable in size to his own classroom, but it was very, very different in content.

A single table stretched the length of the room, ostensibly dividing it down the middle. Half a dozen men and women rushed along the walls, constantly checking and rechecking a good fifty or more monitors at standing desks. Seated at the far end of the table were the rest of her team, deep in discussion. They were all looking at a holographic projection of something that was on the table between them. As they crossed the room, he noticed that the floor was grated and empty underneath. It was also very dark, not the soft brilliant white of the rest of the structure he'd seen so far. It was almost steampunk, with the black metal table, exposed pipes overhead and grated steel flooring.

"This is the war room" came the simple explanation before he could even ask. Crush hadn't even turned her head to look at him as she'd spoken, and neither did anyone else in the room. He was being completely ignored.

It suddenly struck him that she, along with her team, were all in their hero gear, while he was wearing a tracksuit he used for training. He blushed, which he was glad wouldn't show in the darkened room. He felt incredibly under dressed.

She led him up the right-hand side of the table, and they sat next to the skinniest of the bunch. They quietened immediately.

"Alright, introduce yourselves to the rookie. I'm Michelle"

He nodded, looking to the skinny woman beside Michelle. "Janet." Next came the man with enormous ears, Marvin. A short girl ('There's no way she's an adult!', he thought) called Emma, and a buff man with a small mustache called Barry. Along the other side of the table there was three men, all called Jack (and wasn't that confusing) and two women, Selena and Julia.

They all looked to him expectantly after finishing their own introductions.

"Ah… I-I'm Midoriya. It's a pleasure to work with you."

They nodded, seemingly satisfied with his tepid interaction and turned back to the holograph. Five sets of dots lay across what looked like a topographic map, and already he saw a few patterns. There were blue dots in small clusters of no more than fifteen, singular red dots spread out almost evenly across the map, green dots in pairs or threes, and groups of yellow and pink dots intermingled.

Barry tapped a point of the map and it zoomed in, showing a specific cluster of yellow/pink dots that had a red dot near it's centre.

"This should be the focus area. Highest density, there's a previous record of the interaction and to top it off, if the model the engineers worked out is accurate, there should be another incident within a week."

A quiet cacophony rose from the group, some making noises of agreement, others disapproval. Julia raised her voice louder to rebut.

"We can't just bloody single out one area and assume we'll be able to solve the problem if we can stop one of them. We _know_ that there are at least six of them and there's probably a hell of a lot more than that! We need to figure out where the epicentre is, the base of operations or whatever. Stop the bastards at the source!"

Michelle added her two cents next. "You know we can't do that Jules, we would end up causing too much collateral damage. To add to that issue, we don't know if there even _is_ a single distribution point." She snapped her fingers at him. "Kid, what do you think?"

"M-me? Um… well… what do the different colours of dots mean?"

"Blue is civilian camp, red is a recorded energy spike location, green is villain sightings, pink is villain attacks and yellow is civilian casualties as a result."

"I see…" He began to mutter to himself, thinking hard, while the group watched intently. He flicked his hand in annoyance at the zoomed view and was surprised when the map actually zoomed back out, but his train of thought wasn't interrupted.

"I think… there is an epicentre, like Miss Julia said. If you draw a circle around each red dot so that it hits one green dot, it always hits at least one other green dot, so then… you can take all of the circles and colour them out, take the bits that are _not_ coloured and join them up… and it forms an ellipse! So I think that villain's base might be somewhere near the 'fat' end of the ellipse, and the farther incidents are there to distort our results, and the red energy spikes are another method of hiding the pattern!"

Silence reigns for a moment, as even the people checking monitors along the side freeze in place to look at him. He is suddenly very uncomfortable, and fidgets nervously in his seat. Then the room explodes into applause, and he gets a heavy hand on his shoulder, squeezing.

"Well bloody done, kid! That took us six weeks to solve."

One of the Jack's called out "Yeah, it was a bloody bastard to work out until we did pretty much what you just said. We decided, and by we, I mean Michelle, that it would be a good extra credit project for you while you were here! We never expected you to solve it in literally ten minutes."

"As a reward, Midoriya, take the day off, go and do some training in the G-room or have Barry here take you to the actual gym. Get into bed at a reasonable time though, because we're starting bright and early. 0300."

He felt giddy. Surely, they were playing it up, right? It hadn't been that difficult of a problem. As he let Barry lead him to the gym, the man laughing and joking with him all the way, he had no idea that they were very rapidly reassessing the training they had planned.

The moment the doors closed behind Midoriya, the heroes and scientists turned and exchanged glances.

"That assignment should have been difficult for a fifth year, or third, in Japanese terms. There's no way the kid is that good without extensive practice. Did Toshinori say anything about the kid being a fucking tactical genius, Michelle?"

The enormous woman shook her head. "He mentioned a 'certain skill for analysis' like it was negligible, muttered something about taking down notes and moved on. I suppose, given his reaction to meeting us and the brief glance I got of his notebook, we should have expected that he would be exceptional. However, he's far from perfect. His style of analysis is very jumpy. I get the feeling that if we'd removed any one set of dots from that he wouldn't have got the answer at all. He needs to understand logical process."

One of the scientists spoke up. "I agree. What's more important here is that he learns how to use what he actually knows to extrapolate, then go _find_ the information he is missing. I recommend a research project instead of a 'case'."

Selena nodded. "I'm in favour of that idea. Ayes?"

A chorus of "Aye" echoed the room, confirming the proposal. "Very well Agatha, you'll be in charge of assigning his research project. Have it ready by 0800 tomorrow."

Agatha nodded, and scurried off. She had a high schooler's research project to plan. It might not be exactly what she got her double degree in hero law and forensic psychology for, but she'd be damned if she didn't deliver a good assignment for the boy.

 **Endeavour Hero Agency, Endeavour's Office**

Shouto had been surprised, somewhat angered, and very upset with his father after the debacle of his first day on the internship. They hadn't gotten any actual work done that day. The second day was hardly any better, he'd still not trusted his father enough to not instantly revert to his former attitude while they were training. Today though, he was willing to give his old man a genuine chance and work with him.

"What shall we be doing today, Endeavour?"

The man snorted in amusement. "The same thing we were supposed to have been doing since day one, patrolling. I've added a little twist to this, though. I've hired some people to tail us all day. They are all professionals, but they'll purposefully be acting at a certain level of efficacy so that you may or may not catch them all. Your extra assignment is to detail, at the end of the day, as much as you can about as many of them as you can. Hopefully this will be good on-the-job training."

He was surprised. He'd expected "You need to be constantly utilising both sides of your quirk to keep your temperature at a steady level" or something else to increase his power. Instead, his father was offering what he'd heard the lecturers at school call lateral progression; a different ability instead of increasing his existing ones. His surprise must have shown on his face, because Endeavour reacted, first with a small frown, before he laughed.

"I may be a big man, Shouto, but I didn't get to be a hero purely by punching things and burning things, you know. I passed top of my class in stealth operations, actually, beating out _All Might_ by a good fifteen percent." The name of his rival still elicited a good amount of spite, but in general, he was just _talking_ to Shouto, not yelling at him, not condescending, not aggressive… it was peculiar how committed the man was to changing.

Still, the fact that Endeavour of all people had been the best in his class at stealth was an eye-opener for Shouto. Of course his father wasn't stupid, he _knew_ that. Who, after all, had introduced him to number theory, complex numbers, calculus and god knows what other ridiculous maths concepts at the age of _eight?_ It certainly hadn't been his mother.

Shouto nodded carefully, gauging the man's expression. Finding nothing, he shrugged and left to get changed. His father didn't stop him.

 **The Streets Of Hosu**

They'd passed four times now, the first tailer. They were clearly the most obvious of the four, or at least, the four that Shouto was certain he had deduced were actually following them. He wouldn't put it past Endeavour to have given the tailers' the route he planned on walking just to make it easier for them to follow.

He came to an abrupt stop when his father put a hand on his shoulder and he saw that they'd crossed paths with another hero. He glanced up and saw that his father's signature scowl was immediately back in place.

"Manual. It's a pleasure." His tone was clipped and dripping with malign intent. He clearly wanted nothing to do with the man. By comparison, Manual looked genuinely happy to see his father.

"Endeavour! Wonderful, this is perfect! Ah, you see, I've lost my intern. He must have been distracted by something and I wandered off without realising. He's the Iida kid, Ingenium's little brother. Have you seen him?"

Shouto immediately felt that something was wrong. Iida wouldn't just wander off, or get distracted. It was clear by the worried look on Manual's face, despite his smile, that he knew it too. Then something clicked. The Hero Killer had attacked Iida's brother in Hosu. The Hero Killer was in Hosu. Iida was…!

"Dad. Iida's gone after the Hero Killer. Finding Iida means we find Stain."

His father's flames flared up, but otherwise he seemed to be in control.

"Alright, Manual, you radio back to your agency and get someone to prep containment for Stain and get people out here and evacuating civilians. As for Shouto and I…" His face split in a sadistic grin. "We've got a Hero Killer to catch."

Manual's face dropped into a very uncharacteristic scowl. "Now, we can't jump to conclusions like that. I'm sure Iida has just been caught up in something..."

Endeavour sneered down his nose at the shorter man. "If you need _me_ of all people to tell you that the Iida boy didn't just wander off, then you don't deserve to be a hero. Shouto, haul yourself back to the office ASAP and rouse a general alarm. We're going to drop the net on Hosu today. Tell Harriday… Code 3-ii5. That should be adequate."

Unlike Manual, who immediately started up arguing with his father again, Shouto simply nodded and sprinted back the way they'd come. He'd barely gotten two hundred metres down the road before one of the tails sidled up to him and started keeping pace.

"What's the breaks, kid?"

"Hero Killer. Code 3-ii5. Rousing alarm. Dropping a net. Whatever." Shouto bit out short phrases as he ran, the man seemingly understanding and suddenly stopping, going pale. Shouto didn't know what he was doing, and he didn't care. He had his orders and for once he felt inclined to follow them to the letter.

It was surprising, although it perhaps should not have been, that it took him a mere twenty seven minutes to reach headquarters despite the fact that they'd been patrolling for hours. He burst into the lobby and ran straight to Harriday at the front desk, who was looking shellshocked already, and spat out the code and his father's orders. She blinked at him once, twice, and then dove into action, hitting a button in front of her and quickly relaying Endeavour's orders over the PA. The efficiency of everyone's actions, as sidekicks formed into squads, receptionists opened lines to the police and other hero agencies, and analysts fired up a set of programs that Shouto himself had never used, but that he knew would allow them to keep track of everything from heat signatures to live footage from street cameras.

He was quickly bundled up with a group of sidekicks who he'd never met, spoken to, or seen before. They lead him from the building with only slightly less grim expressions than those his father usually wore.

For the next two and a half hours, the group patrolled in a very specific pattern, responding to occasional voice comms and tightening the 'net'. They routinely spotted other groups, though they never acknowledged them beyond watching them from the periphery.

Finally there was a call to action. One of the groups had found the Hero Killer! Apparently he'd been in the process of fleeing after killing a pro and a kid (who Shouto assumed, with burning helplessness and anger, was Iida) when the group had intercepted him. Well, the Hero Killer wasn't getting away with it. He might be able to take on one or two heroes, but the combined _seventy_ of the Endeavour Hero Agency? Plus Endeavour himself, and Shouto? It was the equivalent of a single rook playing against three full sets of pieces.

They were the fourth group on the scene. Endeavour himself was already there, too, looking confident. Stain, however, looked decidedly _less_ than confident. He'd been herded into a killbox of sorts, exposed in the middle of the street. He was surrounded by twenty three heroes and he was panting heavily, while none of the heroes looked any worse for wear. His swords were still stained with blood.

"Stand down, Stain! You're hopelessly outmatched by now. Even more heroes are on their way and I don't have any more patience for this!"

The man stood tall, facing the angry Endeavour without a trace of fear despite his intimidating voice and posture. He opened his mouth to speak, then…

Crumpled to the ground, red blossoming from his shoulder. An enormous _crack!_ echoed around the street, then a figure leapt down to the street from the top of one of the buildings. Shouto immediately recognised the figure as Snipe, one of his teachers. The group closed in around Stain's body, quickly pressing him down, one sidekick on each limb, not taking any chances with the dangerous criminal. Endeavour watched Snipe approach while keeping an eye on Stain in the periphery.

"I didn't realise you were in town. Thought you'd be at UA."

Snipe might have raised an eyebrow at that, but Endeavour wasn't to know considering the hero wore a full-face mask. Either way, he didn't get a verbal response, so he assumed that he definitely did something under that mask that was either dismissive or annoyed. Which, of course, annoyed Endeavour right back. Scowling, he turned his full attention to Stain.

Meanwhile, Shouto had disengaged from the take-down scene and was running through the alleyways of the city at random, hoping and praying that Iida wasn't lying dead in one of them. There had been no chatter saying that the 'kid' who Stain had reportedly killed had been found, so it was likely that if Iida was the victim he was still lying in one of these… SHIT!

Shouto skidded to a stop, heart going from racing to almost dead still in an instant. On the ground, not fourteen feet from him, was the rather gruesome corpse of the Pro Hero Native. "No…" He slowly, almost reverently approached the man's body, careful to avoid stepping in any blood. He didn't want to mess with the crime scene. Quickly calling in his location to his father, he looked around the alleyway for any other signs of fighting. He took all of a second to notice the scorch marks that definitely couldn't have come from Native along the alley's floor. They were spaced conveniently at almost the exact distance of Iida's stride. Outwardly attempting to maintain calm, Shouto felt his emotions bubbling up fiercely. Further back from the scorches was a trail of blood.

He followed the trail slowly, dreading what he might find at the end of it. Eventually he turned one last corner and was met with the sight that he had been desperately hoping he wouldn't have to see. Iida was flat on his face on the ground, one arm extended before him, the other crumpled at an odd angle at his side, blood pooling around an enormous cut in his side. It took Shouto a minute to calm himself enough to take a real look and realise that the evisceration hadn't been the cause of death. No, it seemed that Stain had followed his helpless victim and executed him. Iida's head was no longer attached to his body, having rolled a foot or so to rest near his outstretched hand.

Shouto couldn't contain himself anymore and vomited.

He didn't know how long it took before he finished emptying his stomach and started emptying his tear ducts, but he was down to dry, sore eyes and sobbing by the time his father reached him. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked up, an unspoken question in his eyes.

"No, it doesn't get easier, or go away. Come on, let's get back to the headquarters and clean you up." His father did exactly that, cleaned him up, and then simply sat with Shouto in his office, a hand on his shoulder while he emptily stared into space. The boy eventually calmed enough to realise that Endeavour seemed to be waiting for something. The question didn't need to be answered for him as almost on cue, the door was pushed open quietly and Eraserhead stepped through, his expression grim and his pace quick.

"Shouto, I'll get you to make a full report tomorrow, for now, can you go home? Let your… friends, know what you need to tell them and come in no earlier than lunchtime tomorrow. I'm expecting you well-rested, understood?"

Shouto nodded dumbly, pacing his way out of the office, the building and the district in equal numbness. At some point, he didn't know when, he'd pulled out his phone and started to type out a message to Izuku. It was some babble about bad things and the Hero Killer and a lot of other nonsense that didn't get to the point, so he decided to delete it and opted for the simple route.

He just hoped his text wouldn't alarm Izuku too much.

 **Midoriya's Room, Undisclosed Facility, Australia**

He stared at the mangled remains of his phone. Just his luck that he would drop it out of his pocket when he was fourteen stories high in the air. At least the sim had not been overly damaged, and the techs were working on recovering the data to be transferred to a new phone that was being offered to him free of charge. "It's covered on your internship insurance this time" had been the reasoning, and that made sense at least.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something… wrong. That his phone dying now of all times was a really, really bad thing. Training was going well, if exhausting, and the people were all great, his English was far better now thanks to constant use, his weight and muscle mass were slightly up from all the work he'd been doing, and to top everything off, All Might would be coming to oversee his final day of internship today! Everything seemed to be going well. So why did he feel like he should be worried?

The growing sense of dread he felt as the hours ticked by in the gym, up to the 12:30 arrival time he was waiting for, reached fever pitch as he was finally instructed to drop his boxing gloves (in this base, all training ran on a rotating schedule, you were never doing the same training more than one day in a row) and head to the airfield.

It exploded from dread into an all-out panic attack when All Might stepped off the plane with a frightening expression, followed by Eraserhead, who wasn't supposed to be here.

"What happened."

It was a demand, Izuku's worry bubbling over to the point he didn't even realise he had spoken English, nor how rude he'd been.

"I… I'm so sorry, young Midoriya… Your friend, Iida… he was involved in a villain incident and… he… didn't make it."

Silence reigned as Izuku slowly processed the words All Might had spoken. Then he collapsed in a dead faint.

 **Ok. I know that this chapter isn't the best. Nor was the last. I was getting frustrated with how it seemed to be resisting my many attempts to edit it into something better and I am posting it as is with the intention to potentially revisit it and wrangle something better out of it. I also began some serious work on a couple of sub-plots in this and the previous chapter. The obvious being the Endeavour redemption arc. The less obvious… well, you wouldn't want the fun spoiled for you, would you?**

 **I will be back to work on WTEIU probably soon. Geeruoivoibsdifujaskdf it's 4am I die**


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